


umbrellas bumping together

by taykash



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 18:11:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8337670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taykash/pseuds/taykash
Summary: Nino is really cranky. Also, he's not obsessed. (Also, teenagers have lots of feelings.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2012, before I knew that Riisa was from Hiroshima, not Kansai. Oops.

“You are obsessed,” Jun declares one day at lunch, opening his bento with delicate fingers. His bento is full of shapes, hearts and stars and from what Nino can tell Jun’s onigiri are in the shape of koalas today and seriously, Jun isn’t the person to be telling Nino this.

“I am _not_ ,” Nino protests, but Nino knows his words are falling on deaf ears because Jun is smiling down at his Lucky Charmed vegetables with pride. Nino takes a bite out of his cafeteria curry and scrunches his nose in irritation at Jun.

“You’re not what?” Aiba sits down, Sho in tow, their pinkies linked even as they carry their trays in their free hands. Aiba and Sho are their high school’s worst kept secret. They don’t speak to each other in class or in front of the teachers, but once class is out they are as sickening as Jun’s perfect bento.

Sometimes Nino wonders why he doesn’t just eat lunch with just Mario or Zelda for company. Nino doesn’t even have his pillow today – Ohno begged off eating lunch with them on the roof today, waving clay covered hands and vaguely muttering something about feathers and eyes, and Nino didn’t have the patience to ask.

“He’s obsessed,” Jun replies, opening his perfect soy sauce packet shaped perfectly like a little train, and Nino, not for the first time, wishes that Jun’s favorite department store would get hit by lightning, “With the new girl.”

“Oh,” Sho nods, picking up his sandwich, “Yes.”

“What do you mean, ‘yes’?” Nino demands. He hates his friends. He wonders if he should start hanging around with some of the other boys in his class, but then he remembers his choice is between the guys dripping with grease or the flashy Kansai-wannabes, and he shudders. 

“You keep staring at her,” Aiba opens his box of chocolate first and whines when Sho slaps his hand away, murmuring “dessert later, Masaki.” “We can all tell,” Aiba continues, his bottom lip stuck in a pout as he pokes a spoon into his chahan, “Anyway, didn’t you name Peach in your new game after her?”

“You _did_ take my DS when I went to buy lunch!” Nino snaps, and punches Jun in the arm when Jun starts laughing, a pinwheel-shaped carrot lying intact on his tongue. “And that’s not Peach, that’s Daisy,” Nino adds, his chin jutting out in irritation.

Nino doesn’t know why he’s the one who is being pointed out. He’s not _obsessed_. Riisa just happens to be really pretty, and he once overheard her sharing a tactic on how to beat the third boss in the new Zelda game to one of the other girls. _Obsession_ wasn’t the word, okay. Nino was in _love_. And he was defensive about it.

“ – I don’t know why you’re so defensive about it,” Sho says around a mouthful of chicken salad, “You should just ask her out.”

“You can take her to Akiba and buy her cosplay and live together in nerd bliss,” Aiba points out, his fingers tapping laughter on the table as Nino, very dignified, takes another bite of curry and pretends he is deaf.

To be honest, Nino doesn’t _want_ to ask her out. He’d rather live with the thought of a fantasy Riisa, one who plays Dragon Quest and eats milk buns all day, and if he finds out that she is nothing more than the usual teenage girl he will give up on love entirely. The weekend before, after too many beers that Aiba had snuck into Sho’s house, Nino had declared that to his four stupid friends, and Jun and Sho had laughed until they had gotten sick. Ohno had tilted his head, said “if you give up on love you can live on my boat with me when I buy it,” and had laid down on the tatami as Aiba cried over the futility of Nino’s love life.

Nino watches Jun pick out every last crumb from his bento and purposely drips roux onto the table.

\----

Nino is stuck with garbage duty this week. He and Kuroki are assigned to collect all the garbage in the school, and he is waiting in the empty classroom with a box of garbage bags. He doesn’t mind Kuroki. She has bright eyes that crinkle when she smiles and her skin reminds him of caramel or Ohno when he goes painting in the park and forgets to wear sunscreen.

When the classroom door opens, he looks up expectantly, but his words of greeting crumple and die somewhere in the neighborhood of his stomach when Kuroki isn’t the one that walks in.

“Meisa wanted to go out with her boyfriend so we switched,” Riisa says in her Kyoto accent, “I didn’t want to be on blackboard duty anyway. Makes me sneeze.”

Nino files that away in his memory and just nods. The tips of his ears feel hot and if he is blushing he swears he is going to drown himself in the boys’ bathroom. Well, not himself. Maybe Aiba, if he can wrangle him away from Sho for once.

“I’m Riisa,” she says, adjusting the bright rainbow-colored watch on her wrist, and Nino doesn’t say “I know,” or “marry me,” or even “I like your watch,” he just says “Nino” and hands her a black garbage bag.

When they walk to the library they pass by Jun, who is wiping down classroom windows. Jun grins so wide the moles above and below his lips disappear and Nino narrows his eyes at him as a threat. It takes less than a minute for his phone to start buzzing silently in his pocket and he hates how quickly Jun’s fingers fly over the phone keyboard. Thanks to Jun, he knows that Aiba already knows and is probably sending him dirty suggestions. Nino wonders how much trouble he would get into with his mother if he threw his phone away, decides it’s not worth it, and turns his phone off instead.

Riisa is a lot more casual than Nino has ever heard her, with some Kansai-ben thrown into her speech, and Nino thinks it’s cute. 

They finish quicker than Nino would have liked, tying the last two bags shut before it’s even five in the afternoon. “Okay!” Riisa claps her hands together and grins at Nino, who is trying very hard to not wonder about her perfume. “Good work today,” she says, tossing her bag over the shoulder, and Nino dutifully repeats it like a robot as he stares at the rhinestone zebra clip in her hair.

In the furo that night he submerges himself in the hot water until he is gasping for breath, then does it again to teach himself a lesson about courage.

It’s another week before he talks to her again. Another long week of Jun’s comments, expertly crafted to hurt the way his bento are perfectly shaped to please; of Aiba’s suggestions, dirty enough to shock Sho into a bright red blush and for Jun to scowl and scold him about _hygiene, personal and public_ ; of Sho’s concerned questions about Nino’s mental health and stress level; of Ohno’s distracted touches, hugs, and handshakes, covered in clay and paint and once, gravel. 

Nino wonders, not for the first nor the last time, if it’s possible to trade your friends in for video games.

Approximately six days, five hours, and two minutes after garbage duty day (not that he’s counting), Riisa sits next to Nino in the library over his free period and he just looks at her, wide-eyed and startled. Riisa grins so wide Nino tries to count her teeth and she slides over a postcard, her green-and-yellow polka dotted nails garish against the bright colors. “There’s going to be a private event where they’re revealing the new Final Fantasy game,” she whispers, and Nino knows he’s never heard anything so beautiful. “I was invited because I’ve placed in a few game tournaments, and I can bring a friend. Will you come with me?”

Nino feels like this is a marriage proposal. He touches her wrist, and very seriously, says “Yes.”


End file.
